Maria Kyrarini is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and David Packard Jr. Faculty Fellow at Santa Clara University (SCU). She leads the Human-Machine Interaction & Innovation (HMI2) research group which has been supported by federal (NSF) and SCU internal grants.  Prior to SCU, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Heracleia Human-Centered Computing Lab at the University of Texas at Arlington. In 2019, she received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Bremen under the supervision of Professor Dr.-Eng. Axel Gräser. Before that, she received her M.Eng. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering and her M.Sc. degree in Automation Systems both from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Her primary research interests are in the fields of Robot Learning from Demonstrations, Human-Robot Interaction, and Assistive Robotics with a special focus on enhancing Human Performance. 

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Manizheh Zand is an enthusiastic engineer with an MS degree in Electrical Engineering from San Jose State University. She has co-founded www.mymentortree.org, a non-profit corporation with a vision of building self-esteem and passion for STEM technology within underserved students. In the past, Manizheh has held positions as a Tenure Track Engineering Instructor, Adjunct Faculty, and Embedded Hardware Design Engineer. She was a co-founder of a school for developmentally disabled people and co-founder of a Commercial Construction Corporation. She studied Petroleum Engineering at the Sharif University of Technology. Manizheh is currently pursuing her Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Santa Clara University under the supervision of Dr. Maria Kyrarini. 

Krishna Kodur received his Bachelor's in Technology in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Silchar, India, and his Master's in Computer Science from the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at Santa Clara University, USA, in reinforcement learning for human-robot collaboration in assistive robotics under the supervision of Dr. Maria Kyrarini. 

Hambal Tella received his Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Nigeria, and a research-based master's program in Electrical Engineering with his thesis focused on deep learning algorithms from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Saudi Arabia. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Santa Clara University, USA, in industrial robotics and dynamic task allocation under the supervision of Dr. Maria Kyrarini.   

Aidan O’Hare is a 2nd year Electrical and Computer Engineering Master's student with an emphasis in Control Systems. Aidan is a recipient of the National Science Foundation Access for Persons with Disabilities (NSF STEM-APWD) and is currently working on his Master's Thesis, which focuses on Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (V-SLAM) as well as multi-robot systems. When not in the lab or in class, you can find Aidan practicing, jamming, or performing on the saxophone. With the help of a pedal board of guitar effect pedals and a pickup installed on the neck of his saxophone, Aidan is able to create a multitude of sounds not normally possible with an acoustic instrument. In addition to music, he also enjoys hiking, Muay Thai, and nature photography.

Luca Chierotti is a 2nd year Electrical and Computer Engineering Masters student with an emphasis in Machine Learning and Signal Integrity. He also completed his undergrad at Santa Clara University with a degree in Electrical Engineering. His recent research includes the classification of the 4 phases of the freestyle stroke in competitive swimming using computer vision and machine learning. His past research included mental fatigue classification from speech using classical ML techniques and deep learning. In his free time, Luca enjoys swimming for the Santa Clara University Swim Club, lifting weights, and hiking.

Nicholas Kenny is a master's student studying machine learning applications in robotics and is passionate about building low-cost open source robots. Initially, Nicholas worked with the PACRR team to build a 3D printed robot quadruped capable of 2D mapping and navigation using LiDAR. More recently, he has worked on testing of visual SLAM systems using RGB-D and stereo depth cameras, especially in multi-robot navigation applications. Currently his research focuses on the development of vision based human intent detection for tele-operated mobile robot systems. Outside of school, Nicholas works as a systems integration engineer at Reliable Robotics and mentors a high school FIRST robotics team.

Vincent Ying is master's student interested in the application of artificial intelligence in robotics. His recent research involves tool manipulation, tool detection and pose estimation, and the safe handover of such implements between robots and humans. In addition, he has investigated the modularization and use of lightweight Vision Language Action (VLA) models and its possible utilization with tool manipulation. Previously, he also worked as software and machine learning engineer in the network security domain. Most of this experience involved building reliable data pipelines and infrastructure for update of various models monitoring network security logs.